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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27293473">An Opponent Is Announced</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/agletbaby/pseuds/agletbaby'>agletbaby</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Haikyuu!!</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Gen, Japanese Men’s National Volleyball Team (Haikyuu!!), Manga Spoilers, Olympics, Team Dynamics, plus the rest of the national team!</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-11-02</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-11-02</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-18 10:15:22</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>13,044</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27293473</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/agletbaby/pseuds/agletbaby</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p></p><blockquote>
  <p>“What’s Aobajohsai?” Kiyoomi rounds on Hyakuzawa.</p>
  <p>“A high school in Miyagi.”</p>
  <p>“Oikawa-san was their captain in my first year at Karasuno,” Kageyama follows up, and Kiyoomi spins back to him.</p>
  <p>“I thought he was from Argentina.”</p>
  <p>“He is now.”</p>
</blockquote>In which Sakusa is trying to prepare for the Olympics, but Oikawa Tooru's backstory keeps getting in the way.
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Oikawa Tooru &amp; Sakusa Kiyoomi</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>70</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>399</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>An Opponent Is Announced</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>In this stretch, with his legs pulled wide and upper body pulled down, there’s only an inch of air and a floorboard to prevent Kiyoomi from ostriching his head into the ground. The idea of doing so becomes actually tempting when someone above him says, “Hey, you looked real good today.”</p><p>Kiyoomi has been here before. Stretching after training, interrupted by a distinct Kansai accent.</p><p>Previously, it has proceeded like this: he looks up and finds Miya’s sweaty face, grinning a hand’s width away from his own. Kiyoomi will jump, and then Miya will laugh and then say something like “let’s stretch together,” as though this isn’t just a ruse devised to consolidate his title as most annoying man in volleyball. Kiyoomi has since leveraged his power as most misanthropic – which can be alternatively read as most willing to never talk to any person ever again no matter how undeniably teammates they are – and decreed No More Disturbing My Stretching. It's a blanket rule, for all matches, all stretching, all Miyas. And it is being broken, right now.</p><p>He waits to see if Miya goes away. Miya doesn’t. Instead, he speaks again, only this time he’s not Miya. “Sorry to interrupt, just wanted to let you know.”</p><p>Ah. Kiyoomi sits up. Ojiro is stood there, a bearable arm’s length away. Right. This isn’t Jackals training; it’s national team. Which means Miya has other people to distract him. A quick check affirms he’s still on the court, messing around with Hoshiumi and Hakuba Gao; they’re trying to balance volleyballs on their heads. Improving ball control.</p><p>Kiyoomi blinks back to Ojiro. “It’s fine.”</p><p>He doesn’t dislike Ojiro. He respects his ability, and has never witnessed him do anything disgusting, dangerous, or even annoying. However, Miya, smug with pride, has mentioned many times that they’ve been friends for years, and Kiyoomi just can’t bring himself to trust someone who’s had that much prolonged exposure to the twins. That’s got to be corrupting, Maybe even corrosive. Like radiation.</p><p>Ojiro nods, and smiles only slightly cautiously. “I saw you receiving Kageyama’s serves just now, and like I said, you looked great. I’m glad to have you on board. There’s gonna be some tough servers at the Olympics.”</p><p>Which, yes. There is.</p><p>Kiyoomi has written out the statistics for every player on every team they could face on their way to a gold medal in a hot pink notebook. Each player gets a page, filled out in their nation’s allocated ink colour. It’s thorough, and it’s neat; Bokuto has admired it at length. He’s always very impressed by things he can’t do.</p><p>When the squad was selected, Kiyoomi had celebrated by spelunking into the deepest recesses of his college experience, lowering himself right back into the caverns of library nights, and he’d begun to revise. The coaches had told them to familiarise themselves with the other teams, and so Kiyoomi has. Properly.</p><p>Which is why he knows that there are fourteen players with jump floaters that, when watching old matches, had the same effect on Kiyoomi’s eyes as eating a lemon would have had on his mouth. Eighteen for spin. There are at least four players who can serve at more than 125 kilometers an hour: arm-losing speeds. And between all of those, there are more who hit the ball left-handed, and with needle-eye accuracy, and probably with flexible wrists too.</p><p>Kiyoomi considers this, and he also considers the time he saw Ojiro chastise Miya across the net in the middle of a league match. He decides he respects that enough for a conversation, and finishes his stretch. He stays sitting down though. “Yeah. I’ve been preparing.”</p><p>Ojiro nods. “Sure, of course. You always know everything at practice matches. You haven’t played Argentina though, right?” Kiyoomi nods: no. Ojiro sighs exaggeratedly, to jokingly suggest how tiring the experience was. The joke doesn’t land, because it wasn’t a joke. “They’re looking tough in general, but their setter’s serves are especially nasty. Like Kageyama’s. Me and Gao played his club team on tour a couple of years ago – their coach used to coach the Falcons – and it wasn’t fun. Meant that all I could think when I saw you receiving just then was ‘phew’.”</p><p>Kiyoomi considers this, in bits. He extrapolates the keywords; a memorisation trick. Tough. Setter, serves, nasty. Phew. He'll consider them further later. “I’ll continue to work hard,” he says.</p><p>Oikawa Tooru’s page in Kiyoomi’s notebook is filled out in the appropriate light blue designated for notes on the Argentinan squad. The name stands out from the others though: its Japanese pronunciation is easier to shape his mouth and memory around than bumpy Spanish. Filling out Oikawa’s information, Kiyoomi had wondered about that, before deciding it didn’t matter. People have all sorts of names, and go all sorts of places. More important is the unusually high number of points he gets, for a setter, and his nasty serve. Nasty is a good word for it. Kiyoomi had thought <em>irritating</em>, but nasty works too.</p><p>He also already has an image of Oikawa in his head, although it’s not drawn from any match highlights or team photos. It’s a pair of eyes, among a crowd of eyes, hands among many hands above the net. Torso – blue, like ink – arms, legs, shoes, pointless mouth. All honed to try and curtail Kiyoomi’s time on the court, to crack the satisfying calm with some distasteful block. Or spike. Or serve. It’s an annoying image, and one that’s repeated across every team he’s yet to play.</p><p>Because Oikawa’s good, but so is everyone here, and there’s nothing which distinguishes him. He wasn’t a fixture of Kiyoomi’s childhood tv screens or tournaments, like Romero or Wakatoshi. He just played in some far-off club Kiyoomi doesn’t know anything about, got good, and now here he is. There’s nothing notable about him except his skills.</p><p>Still, Ojiro singled him out. That’s noteworthy in itself. When Kiyoomi gets back to his apartment after practice, he rereads the page in his pink notebook, and underlines <em> Jump serve </em> . Then he opens another book, this time lime green, and adds another note to his to do list. <em> More receive practice </em>.</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>As the Olympics get closer, national team training gets more intense, and also fuller. What with half the team scattered across continents like spilt rice, it takes time for everyone to be swept up and brought together in Tokyo. Kiyoomi wishes it had happened sooner, not because he cares, but because when the whole squad finally arrives, it’s decided they need to celebrate that fact, and Kiyoomi finds himself forced into going out for dinner. </p><p>He doesn’t see the point. However, he has come to understand that there is a certain extra-curricular aspect to teamwork. Or, to put it another way, the most efficient way to ensure people don’t yell in his ear about not going is to go.</p><p>Kiyoomi finds himself sat between Hinata and Bokuto, which means he doesn’t really escape the ear yelling. Still. Hinata only got back from Brazil a week ago, and Kiyoomi is curious about the Superliga. And if distance has helped Hinata’s case, then proximity has aided Bokuto’s: after three years Kiyoomi has come to respect his commitment enough to overlook how it’s expressed almost sixty percent of the time. </p><p>Opposite them, Wakatoshi sits between Motoya and Ojiro. The three of them are talking, to various extents. It’s frustrating to watch: Kiyoomi has questions he wants to ask Wakatoshi about Warsaw, and the league, and his routines, and his health, and this perfect opportunity to ask them is being squandered by Ojiro and Motoya bonding over something stupid like films or food, whilst Wakatoshi listens, interested.</p><p>At one point, Miya comes over and forces them into a Jackals reunion selfie. This is particularly stupid, in Kiyoomi’s opinion, given that three-quarters of them still train together everyday.</p><p>“Why can’t we just photoshop Hinata into a picture we already have?” Kiyoomi asks. “The effect would be the same and,” (he tries to appeal to Miya’s interests), “the lighting would be better.”</p><p>“Let’s do a fun one,” Miya ignores him, at which point Kiyoomi starts looking across the table even more longingly.</p><p>Motoya catches Kiyoomi’s eye, and sticks his tongue out. Before Kiyoomi can even properly muster a disgusted face to pull back, Miya coos, actually <em> coos </em>.</p><p>“Wow, you guys really are related, huh? You’re kind of the new Samu and Tsumu.”</p><p>“What d’you mean?” asks Bokuto, before Kiyoomi can ask the exact same thing.</p><p>“Well, him and Komori are like, volleyball players who are related. Like me and Osamu.”</p><p>“That’s so stupid, in so many ways,” Kiyoomi tells him, because it is; too many to even know how to begin criticising it. Still, instinct suggests a good place to start. “Ew.”</p><p>“You’re just saying that because you want to be a Tsumu, but you know deep down that you’re only a Samu.”</p><p>“Absolutely not.”</p><p>Before Miya can come back with some terrible comeback, though, Hinata chirps “Osamu-san is cool too!”, and Miya gets distracted by the idea that Hinata has opinions other than ‘Atsumu best’. Kiyoomi uses the opportunity to finally scowl at Motoya. It’s like scratching an itch. Which is worrying: what if that actually is how a Miya twin would feel? Kiyoomi wants to resanitise his hands. He hates team bonting.</p><p>-</p><p>“And Orlov!” It’s later, the lighting in the restaurant has been quietly dimmed, but Bokuto is only getting louder, pontificating about the players he most wants to meet. “Wait, he’s Russian! Do you think Yaku knows him?” Without warning or pause, he shouts past Kiyoomi. “Hey Yaku! Can you introduce me to Orlov!”</p><p>Yaku yells back. “Sure! But you better improve your Russian quick, Bo! He doesn’t speak anything else!”</p><p>Bokuto does an enthusiastic thumbs up and then, after his brain has caught up with reality, slumps back. “I don’t have any Russian to improve in the first place.”</p><p>“That’s okay!” Hinata interjects. “You can just learn how to say, like, ‘hello’, and ‘you’re cool’. Those are always my go-to phrases.”</p><p>Bokuto thinks for a moment, nods enthusiastically, like a flicked bobblehead, and then – and this is the concerning bit – turns to Kiyoomi.</p><p>“Omi-kun,” he begins. “Can you teach me?”</p><p>“No,” Kiyoomi says, automatically. “Why would you even ask me?”</p><p>Bokuto’s owl eyes turn puppyish. “Well, Hinata doesn’t know, and you went to college.”</p><p>“Yeah, for my education. <em> Mine </em>,” Kiyoomi says decisively, before realising he’s been drawn into Bokuto’s vortex of misinterpretation. “Also I don’t know any Russian. Ask Hinata.”</p><p>“Oh, yeah, Hinata does know languages,” Bokuto acknowledges, and then – like a set when you were expecting a spike – his thought process shifts in an unanticipated direction. “Hinata, you know tons of people. Who do you most want to play against?”</p><p>“Hm,” Hinata considers this. “Everyone! There’s a couple of other guys from São Paulo coming, so it’d be fun to play against them for real. One of them plays for America! Oh, and Oikawa! This’ll be my first time playing against Argentina!”</p><p>“Oikawa?” Kiyoomi interjects. “Their setter?”</p><p>“Him and Hinata played together in Brazil!” Bokuto says.</p><p>“Not on a proper team,” Hinata says quickly when confusion creases Kiyoomi’s face, like he’s worried Kiyoomi’s going to call him a traitor or something. “Just beach. A couple of months after I moved there the first time, we ran into each other. I was super homesick, so it was perfect timing.”</p><p>He smiles a little sadly, and Kiyoomi extrapolates. Despite appearances, he is capable of empathy. He just doesn’t bother to do anything with it.</p><p>Still, he can imagine Hinata, more alone than ever before, in a flat he can’t get used to and streets he can’t remember. Strangeness drapes like fabric over everything so the familiar seems ghostly and you can’t get your bearings. Kiyoomi understand, just a bit. Like Bokuto said, he went to college.</p><p>But then, suddenly – and this must have happened by the side of a volleyball court; Kiyoomi imagines Hinata watching an indoor game, an eighteen-by-nine meter fragment of familiarity, the kind that calms Kiyoomi – Oikawa Tooru appears, and he – here Kiyoomi pictures an expat’s kid, born in Argentina, but raised in Japanese, if not Japan – speaks Hinata’s language. Both of them: volleyball too.</p><p>And from there, Hinata must have pulled Oikawa down to the beach. Which is more than plausible. Most people seem to be rendered mere iron filings in proximity to Hinata’s magnetic field.</p><p>“That’s nice,” Kiyoomi acknowledges flatly. “Did you get to see him serve?”</p><p>“It’s different on sand,” Hinata replies, a mean glint in his eye. “The first time he tried, he couldn’t jump at all, and he missed the ball. And then he started yelling about how it was <em> all </em> the wind’s fault.” He pulls a scandalised face, then morphs it into anger: an impression. Bokuto laughs hard. Kiyoomi doesn’t. “He worked out how to do it properly quick though! Although he’s good at way more than just that.”</p><p>This has Kiyoomi leaning in, towards Hinata. He can feel Bokuto behind him, shuffling around to try to get back into the conversation which Kiyoomi has blocked him out of. Kiyoomi stiffens his shoulders, to ignore him more efficiently, and glares at Hinata. “What else is he good at? What can he do?”</p><p>“Uh!” Hinata looks a bit taken aback, for a splinter of a second. It’s been a while since they’ve interacted, Kiyoomi supposes. “Well, he’s a really good setter – obviously!”</p><p>“Yes, and?”</p><p>“And he’s really smart. And bold. Um, it’s hard to explain. I think you really have to be there. See him play.”</p><p>Which is useless information, and Kiyoomi tells Hinata as much.</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p><br/>
<br/>
</p><p>It turns out that competing in the Olympics consists of more than just games. Kiyoomi knew that, realistically, that would be the case, but realism isn’t actually incompatible with hope. It is incompatible with hope being fulfilled, however.</p><p>As an Olympian, you do, in fact, have to attend press conferences where you say how excited you are to be teammates with players you spend the rest of the year competing against, and then you have to smile for photographs which will be dispatched to completely unknown destinations, like a message in a bottle thrown from a desert island. Kiyoomi would rather stay stuck. He normally stands at the back and is grateful that, on this particular shipwreck, 192 centimetres isn’t particularly tall, and there are plenty of people he can duck behind.</p><p>That tactic doesn’t work, though, when there’s only three of you. They’re filming some promotional something for the Japan Volleyball Association, and for some reason, someone decided that it would be better to divide the team into small groups. To make it seem more personal, or something. Kiyoomi thinks that’s very optimistic. Especially given his group consists of Kageyama, Hyakuzawa and himself, and Kageyama can’t talk to people, Hyakuzawa doesn’t, and Kiyoomi won’t.</p><p>So that’s the first problem. The second is the huge poster of Bokuto’s face that they’ll apparently be sitting in front of.</p><p>Kiyoomi halts on the way to his seat; the concept of a Bokuto ten times bigger than normal (and thus, the logic follows, ten times more exuberant) momentarily horrifies him too much to continue. The JVA representative walking in behind him snorts, and then tries to turn it into a cough.</p><p>“Yeah, it wasn’t my first choice either,” he says, stepping forward to stand next to Kiyoomi. “But for whatever reason, Bokuto’s the volleyball poster boy this year. I meant that metaphorically, but,” he gestures at the very literal poster, then shrugs.</p><p>Kiyoomi recognises him; former captain of one of Tokyo’s better teams, former guy-who-occasionally-spirited-Hinata-away-to-promote-things. Kageyama, nodding a greeting, had called him Kuroo-san. But none of that is what Kiyoomi’s trying to remember. There was something else about him–</p><p>“Aren’t you friends with Bokuto?” Kiyoomi asks. He raises a sceptical eyebrow.</p><p>Kuroo only laughs. “Yeah, but that means I have to put up with him when this stuff goes to his head. And it’s not like he needs the encouragement anymore.” Then he shrugs. “Least it’s not Yaku.”</p><p>Kiyoomi decides he doesn’t need to know what Kuroo has against liberos, so he just nods as if he already does.</p><p>“Anyway, Suzumeda went to school with Bokuto,” Kuroo continues, gesturing to the woman from his office who’s going to be conducting the interview. “So she’s biased too.”</p><p>“Is he somehow in charge of JVA hiring?”</p><p>“Well, if he is, he really messed up. Why do you think there are so many Bokuto fail compilations going up on our Twitter?” Kuroo points between himself and Suzumeda, grinning. “It’s all us.”</p><p>“Sure," Kiyoomi goes to sit down.</p><p>It occurs to him, as he waits silently between Kageyama and Hyakuzawa (also waiting silently), that perhaps they’ve been put together in acknowledgement that all of them are useless in interviews. They’re hardly Bokutos. So maybe this is just to tick a box, and the JVA don’t actually intend to post this video anywhere. Fine. Kiyoomi resolves to give particularly boring and perfunctory answers.</p><p>The resolution lasts until they’re asked, <em> Who are you most excited to play against? </em>, and Kageyama immediately answers.</p><p>“Oikawa-san.”</p><p>“Argentina's setter?” Kiyoomi says, fast. Mr Argentina keeps coming up, and it's getting suspicious. Although if Hinata wants to play him, it’s almost inevitable that Kageyama would too, to prove, you know, something. So maybe it’s fine. Everything is comprehensible. Kiyoomi knows everything he needs to know. His notebook is exactly as thorough as it should be.</p><p>Except at the exact same time, Hyakuzawa speaks too, and instantly makes the situation actually suspicious. “Aobajohsai’s setter?”</p><p>Kageyama nods, acknowledging both. </p><p>“What’s Aobajohsai?” Kiyoomi rounds on Hyakuzawa with what even he can acknowledge is far too much frown.</p><p>“A high school in Miyagi.” Hyakuzawa tells him, looking slightly put off.</p><p>“Oikawa-san was their captain in my first year at Karasuno,” Kageyama follows up, and Kiyoomi spins back to him.</p><p>“I thought he was from Argentina.” And Hinata had met him in Brazil, and Kiyoomi’s never heard of him outside the context of South America and so that’s it.</p><p>“He is now,” Kageyama explains, unhelpfully.</p><p>Suzumeda waves at them then, and coaxes Hyakuzawa into expressing an opinion about the Brazilian team being good. Behind her, Kuroo is laughing. Kiyoomi returns to staring straight ahead and answering the questions he’s asked bluntly and truthfully.</p><p>A week or two later, after Kiyoomi has dedicated some significant time to googling nationality and naturalisation – and Oikawa has reshaped himself into someone who wore a uniform like Kiyoomi’s and went to a school like his, and then did everything else in a completely different and incomprehensible way – Motoya sends him a link to the interview, which has been posted. On the internet. It has likes and everything.</p><p>The name of the video is HIGH SCHOOL RIVALS, REVEALED!, and the thumbnail is Kiyoomi glaring at Hyakuzawa, which makes it look like they’re the rivals in question. Motoya sends a follow up message, telling him to be nice to his teammates, which is unfair because Kiyoomi was, for him.</p><p>He doesn’t reply, and doesn’t watch the video either, but he presses the dislike button anyway. </p><p>Then he digs out his notebook and pencil case and finally writes <em> played in Japan </em> on Oikawa’s page. It looks stupid written down. He adds <em> Miyagi </em>in brackets. Then, like it's a clue leading to the world’s most underwhelming secret, he realises that this means Hinata probably already knew Oikawa before Brazil. He must have played the same teams as Kageyama; they went to the same high school. It’s their whole thing. Kiyoomi already knew about that, at least.</p><p>-</p><p>Kiyoomi’s deduction is proven correct before their next training session. He’s putting on his shoes when Hinata bounces up to him, waving his phone meaningfully. It’s off, though, so Kiyoomi just stares at him.</p><p>“I saw your interview! You looked very cool, Omi-san!” Hinata says, poking his phone, before looking at it, realising the screen is blank, unlocking it, waving it once more, and then immediately tucking it away before Kiyoomi can actually take in what's on the screen. Not that he wants to. He uses the time to reconfigure his blank expression into a frown. “But I guess I didn’t really explain how I know Oikawa-san.”</p><p>“No,” Kiyoomi tells him, and goes back to doing his laces up. “You didn’t.”</p><p>“I’m sorry!” Hinata looks honestly mournful. “I assumed you knew. But I’ll make it up to you! We played his team a bunch in high school,” Hinata continues, and lists off the results. A win in a practice match, a loss in a tournament, and then an official win. Once he’s finished, two of his fingers spring up, one on each hand, like players either side of a net. One’s Oikawa. The other isn’t Kiyoomi. One all.</p><p>“Mm,” says Kiyoomi. He’s retied his left lace three times and his right one twice, to achieve the exact level of tightness he wants. Anything else is less than preparedness. It could throw off his jump, and then he land funny and ruin his ankle and from there, a whole universe of preventable injury unfolds just a step away. So he’s prevented it. Next, he lifts one foot onto his other knee and feels the sole of his shoe, checking the grip. The rubber is as pliant as it should be, and his fingers travel across the grooves with the reassuring clatter of train tracks.</p><p>“What else?” Hinata is saying. “Well, do you know Kindaichi, on Tamaden Elephants, in Division Two? He went to Aobajohsai too, and so did Kyoutani on Sendai Frogs. He plays with Tsukki, you know–”</p><p>“I don’t care,” Kiyoomi cuts him off, done with his shoes.</p><p>“Okay!”</p><p>Hinata’s about to bounce off again, but Kiyoomi, his own worst enemy, carries the conversation on. “Sometimes, it really feels like there’s no one you didn’t beat during high school. Even though you were nobody.”</p><p>Hinata looks puzzled, for a moment. “Are you still mad that Karasuno beat Shiratorizawa?”</p><p>“I regret ever speaking to you.”</p><p>“About your high school regrets, or–?”</p><p>“In general.”</p><p>Hinata hums a little too joyfully at that. “Well, there’s tons of people I didn’t beat back then. Like you, y’know, and Hoshiumi-san and Hakuba, and,” his gaze darkening, “Kageyama.”</p><p>“Right.”</p><p>“We made up for that, though!” he says, and does the Jackals claw thing with his hands, the one that Kiyoomi always avoids if he can. It’s almost sweet, given Hinata only played for them for two seasons before jetting back to Brazil. Kiyoomi continues to look at him blankly.</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p><br/>
<br/>
</p><p>It is with a heavy heart that Kiyoomi eats his first breakfast in the Olympic Village with Miya Atsumu and Hoshiumi Korai.</p><p>It’s slightly negated by the fact he could be eating with Hinata and Kageyama, who are mid-argument a couple of tables over, but that doesn’t negate the fact that he could also be alone. If he’d known that agreeing to an early morning practice with Miya and Hoshiumi would also mean having breakfast together, he would’ve– well, he’d probably still have agreed, but he’d have also included a clause specifying no socialising afterwards.</p><p>“I’m surprised you’re here, Sakusa!” Hoshiumi says, when Kiyoomi takes a wipe from the pack in his pocket, immediately after sitting down. “You seem like you’d want to stay at home.”</p><p>“We literally met at an overnight camp,” Kiyoomi reminds him, without looking up from where he’s sanitising the table in practiced, protractural arcs.</p><p>“Yeah, I guess, but you’re from Tokyo, right? So surely you don’t have to stay the whole time.”</p><p>“Wow.” Kiyoomi replies, as flatly as possible. “I hadn’t even realised. I guess I’ll go, then.” He picks up his tray, and stands. Miya jabs Hoshiumi in the arm.</p><p>“You sound like you want him to scram,” he says. “And anyway, Omi lives in Higashiosaka now, not Tokyo. Like me.” He does a smug closed-eye smile that’s not quite stupid enough to insult. Kiyoomi ignores him, and sits back because he was, in fact, joking.</p><p>“Even if I had never left Tokyo,” he says to Hoshiumi, “which I had no problem with doing, I’d still stay in the Village. I wouldn’t really have experienced the Olympics completely if I stayed at my parent’s house. I want to do it properly.”</p><p>“Nothing screams Olympic fun like thoroughness,” says Miya.</p><p>“Would they even let you leave, though?” Hoshiumi wonders, as though he wasn’t the one who suggested it. “The coaches probably want us all here so they can check on us. And so we can bond.”</p><p>“Speaking of bonding, you know what I’m wondering, actually?” Miya interjects. “Are they even friends?” He jerks his head and all three of them turn to stare at Kageyama and Hinata. It’s rude, Kiyoomi thinks, as he does it. The subjects of their attention don’t notice, though. Too engrossed. “Shouyou’s usually so nice and cute, I’m starting to think Tobio-kun is a bad influence,” Miya continues. This isn't a new opinion; he used to say similar things when Hinata was still on the Jackals. Kiyoomi always credited it to some kind of setter weirdness.</p><p>“Don’t be jealous,” he says, now.</p><p>“I’m not!”</p><p>“Ha! Whatever you say,” Hoshiumi says, much to Miya’s distress and Kiyoomi’s approval.</p><p>“It was a real question! They should be friends, you know. They were teammates for years.”</p><p>“That doesn’t mean anything,” Kiyoomi replies. “We’re still teammates, and we’re not friends.”</p><p>Miya looks shocked. “What are we, then?”</p><p>“Colleagues. Obviously.”</p><p>Before Kiyoomi can elaborate on what kind of cubicle mate Miya would be (loud, leaves crumbs on his desk, doesn’t stop his papers spilling into your space; just the worst), and Miya can pull an even more aghast face, Hoshiumi interrupts. “What’re they even fighting about?”</p><p>As Kiyoomi had passed by Hinata and Kageyama, he’d heard the words ‘serve’, ‘set’ and ‘sand’, had figured beach volleyball, and decided he didn’t care. The whole appeal of a court is that it stays where it is, and the idea of you being able to fall <em> into </em>it – and it into you, under your clothes and nails and in your hair – makes Kiyoomi itch, like he actually is sandy. He’d disowned all interest in the squabble, and kept walking.</p><p>So he’s not expecting Miya to say, “<em> The </em> Oikawa Tooru.” He’s smirking, but there’s something kind of annoyed in his tone too. Maybe he actually is jealous.</p><p>“Ah!” Hoshiumi’s eyes light up competitively. “About whether we’ll beat Argentina in straight sets, or let them take one, out of mercy?”</p><p>Miya snorts. “More like, what Oikawa’s best at.” He puts on a high-pitched voice which sounds like neither Hinata nor Kageyama. “Ooh, Oikawa-san’s sets are so cool to hit, oh, he’s so good at teamwork, don’t you think, Atsumu-san?” He rolls his eyes and, dropping the voice, huffs. “They both think he’s the bee's knees, they just like to argue about why. Sets versus serves, all that. It’s dumb. If you’re good, it <em> should </em>be at everything.”</p><p>“Don’t worry, Atsumu!” Hoshiumi says. Loudly. Of course. “I’m sure they think you’re good too. It’s not your fault you didn’t teach them how to serve!”</p><p>Miya mutters something about not even properly teaching, from what he’s heard, but Kiyoomi doesn’t care about his sulking. He narrows his eyes at Hoshiumi instead. </p><p>“Oikawa taught Hinata how to serve? Was that in Brazil?” Hinata, finding some guy from high school on a different continent, and then learning his serve. It’s ridiculous, but it’s also Hinata.</p><p>“I don’t know anything about Hinata’s serve,” Hoshiumi tells him, wide-eyed with surprise or amusement or interest. Or maybe that’s just his resting face; it is how he always looks. “He taught Kageyama when they were at school together.”</p><p>“But they went to different schools. Aoba wherever.”</p><p>“Kageyama went to middle school with Oikawa. They went from school teammates to rivals on the world stage. It's a cool, huh!”</p><p>Kiyoomi’s sceptical expression turns into an inarguable frown. Should he have known this? His understanding of the Oikawa situation, already unstable, shakes again, and Kiyoomi’s vision of a beach collapses into a school gym once and for all. Oikawa keeps getting more and more mundane. Outloud, Kiyoomi says, “That’s improbable.”</p><p>“Why? You went to school with Komori. I went to school with Gao. Atsumu went with Aran.” Hoshiumi’s eyes are still wide, and he tilts his head to the side. Like a bird. Peck peck.</p><p>“That’s different,” Kiyoomi mutters.</p><p>“Why?” Hoshiumi says, in the exact same tone as before, except louder.</p><p>“We don’t play for different countries.”</p><p>Hoshiumi considers this, and seems to accept it, in that he doesn’t argue back. “Well, if you think that’s weird, wait until you hear about who else is from–”</p><p>Miya, clearly withering away from lack of attention, flops over, way too far into Kiyoomi’s personal space. Kiyoomi musters all his disgust, and vocalises it in a single, concise, <em> ugh </em>. It cuts Hoshiumi off just long enough for Miya to reclaim the conversation, and whatever he was about to say is lost to the gullet of Miya’s ego.</p><p>-</p><p>After that, they spend all day training. Everything except the court, the ball, and the way it moves through the air, is irrelevant, cleared away. It feels good. It does mean that Kiyoomi has to wait until the evening to reflect on today’s batch of Oikawa revelations, though.</p><p>When he gets back to his room, he opens his pink notebook to Oikawa’s page. Weeks ago, Ojiro had said his serves were tough, <em> like Kageyama’s </em>. Kiyoomi supposes they must be.</p><p>He reviews the case so far. Kiyoomi has written that Oikawa Tooru is 185cm, according to the Club Atlético San Juan website. He hasn’t written that Oikawa has brown eyes and speaks Spanish distastefully quickly, although he knows that to, thanks to a video interview he watched without understanding a word of. And, Kiyoomi knows that he went to school and played volleyball in Japan, and was good enough, even in middle school, to impress Kageyama still. Not good enough for Kiyoomi to have heard of him then. Good enough that he’s heard of him now. Which suggests someone utterly intent and skilled and hungry, with a rough edge of underdog, which Kiyoomi doesn’t much like.</p><p>None of that will be helpful on court. Kiyoomi can’t think of anything else.</p><p>He’s sharing a room with Motoya, like he has at every training camp and tournament until the age of eighteen. The arrangement is placidly familiar. There’s an odd number of drawers so, as always, Kiyoomi claims the extra one, as well as most of the space by the sink in their bathroom. In return Motoya gets the bed closest to the door, and can eat food in the room so long as he doesn’t get crumbs on anything.</p><p>“This is so much like old times, I’m getting nostalgic,” Motoya tells him, from where he is marooned in the middle of the floor with only two rice crackers for company. “And they said this was a once in a lifetime occasion.” Kiyoomi ignores him. “Aren’t you lucky I tagged along to the Olympics, just to cater to your neuroses?”</p><p>“It’s sensible to do things my way,” Kiyoomi replies, sat crossed legged on his bed. “They wouldn’t be neuroses if everyone did them.”</p><p>Motoya considers this. “You’re right, but your logic is wrong.”</p><p>“I don’t care.”</p><p>“Me neither.” Motoya smiles at him. Kiyoomi wills his face into whatever the opposite of a smile is. Annoying, he knows he’s managed it when Motoya grins wider. Time to move on from this conversation.</p><p>“How does everyone know how everyone knows Oikawa Tooru?” he asks.</p><p>“They probably talk to their teammates, who are gossips and’ll tell them everything, even if they didn’t ask,” Motoya tells him, in the tired tone of someone who has been told everything, even though he didn’t ask. Kiyoomi could ask him right now if he knows whether it’s just Hinata and Kageyama, or if Oikawa’s influence spread further. Like mold. However, then the information would be secondhand, and Kiyoomi believes in doing things right, which means following up all possible sources himself.</p><p>“I’m going to ask Wakatoshi-kun.”</p><p>“Yeah, that was definitely who I was talking about. Ushijima, the biggest gossip of them all.” Motoya, done with his crackers, sits on the edge of his mattress and bobs a couple of times, like an ice cube dropped into a glass. Then he flops back and immediately starts melting into the bed. Kiyoomi, knowing this means he’s done for the day, doesn’t bother replying. He puts on a mask and lets himself out, ready to find Wakatoshi.</p><p>This isn’t hard, given they’re staying on the same corridor. Kiyoomi had paid attention to which rooms are occupied around him, to know the opening doors to pause for (Wakatoshi’s) and the ones to speed up at (everyone else’s).</p><p>Three rooms down, he knocks, and hopes Kageyama – Wakatoshi’s roommate – doesn’t open it. But luck is on his side: steps, a swing, and Wakatoshi is stood in his doorway. The instinct is to put an adjective on the end of that sentence; to say that he stands there expectantly, or patiently, or inquisitively. Kiyoomi doesn’t though, because Wakatoshi just is.</p><p>With the same lack of ornamentation, he asks, “Do you know Oikawa Tooru?”</p><p>“Yes,” Wakatoshi replies, showing no surprise at the question, although that’s hardly revealing. It’s hard to surprise him.</p><p>“How?”</p><p>“During school, we were–” (Wakatoshi pauses, three seconds manifesting like ellipses. Kiyoomi recognises this careful arranging of words which, once complete, will be produced like a bouquet of flowers from behind a back. It’s a kind gesture, and Kiyoomi has received it before, although this time, he’s fairly sure it’s not for him.) “Peers. He is also from Miyagi, and was always a talented player – as he has now made clear to everyone – so we played each other several times.”</p><p>“I see.” Kiyoomi wasn’t sure what he expected Wakatoshi to say, but the sheer familiarity of this description surprises him, although he doesn’t show it. If there’s one thing Kiyoomi knows better than anything, it’s being a teenager, looking across a net at Wakatoshi. If there’s another, it’s that he’s not particularly interesting, really. He followed the proper path, doesn’t want to live anywhere other than Japan, gets excited over good manners and cleaning equipment and solitude. How boring of Oikawa, to go from standing on a beach in South America with a world class serve, to someone who is almost relatable to Kiyoomi. How weird, to do it in reverse.</p><p>“I am looking forward to playing him again. He is always a challenging opponent.” (Wakatoshi takes another moment of consideration, in order to assemble irises and nasturtiums and zinnias.) “I think that you might enjoy playing him too.”</p><p>Ah. And Kiyoomi knows Wakatoshi looking back through a net, at him.</p><p>The room is almost-dark behind Wakatoshi, and Kiyoomi can hear breathing: Kageyama, asleep. He remembers someone saying that Wakatoshi and Kageyama were sharing a room because they normally share a timezone. They’re on the cusp of late now: Kiyoomi wonders which of them hasn’t adjusted. The only light comes from a lamp, a moon of light at Wakatoshi’s elbow. From it, Kiyoomi can extrapolate the desk, the laptop closed and the chair pushed out on the way to the door. Wakatoshi is working hard.</p><p>The lamplight, which at first looked like a closed circuit, an island, is actually, carefully illuminating the whole room. The air is dawning grey, right up to the doorframe. And beyond. All at once, Kiyoomi becomes conscious that the light reaches into the corridor too, rendered invisible under the LEDs, but there. The knowledge that he is sharing the air with something else floods the space underneath his skin with alarm. It’s a dam which always ruptures easily: at the heat of someone else’s breath, at dust motes, at distant coughs. His mask doesn’t help. Something will always reach him, no matter how much Kiyoomi prepares.</p><p>He offers Wakatoshi a maybe, and leaves.</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>The next day, Kiyoomi confronts Hyakuzawa during a break in practice. He’s talking to Yaku; Kiyoomi cuts in just as Yaku says, “I know he’d appreciate an autograph, he really does like trains.”</p><p>“Hey,” Kiyoomi starts. “Hyakuzawa. I have a question.”</p><p>“Hey,” Yaku frowns. “I’m talking.”</p><p>“Okay,” Kiyoomi tells him, and turns to Hyakuzawa anyway, who looks unbothered by the interruption. Clearly he isn’t too invested in being the train guy. Kiyoomi understands, although this doesn’t extend to sympathy: Hyakuzawa chose to join the Railway Warriors. Kiyoomi’s mind is suitably one-track right now, though. “Do you know Oikawa Tooru? You knew his school, you have to. Do you have some rivalry with him? Did he train you too? Or, what, are you actually secretly related to him?”</p><p>“I’ve never met him.” Hyakuzawa says. “But I watched a couple of his games in my first year playing volleyball.”</p><p>Oh. “And you remember that?”</p><p>“He got talked about a lot. I knew a couple of members of his team. And Hinata.”</p><p>Kiyoomi narrows his eyes, trying to decide whether or not he believes it’s that simple. He should be able to. This is the least revelatory conversation he’s had about Oikawa since Ojiro. And now he’s surprised by that.</p><p>Yaku takes advantage of the pause to physically insert himself in between the two of them. That puts him way too close to Hyakuzawa to actually have a conversation, but exactly near enough to Kiyoomi to make his point. Kiyoomi concedes, and shuffles back where there’s no risk of Yaku’s sweaty arms touching him.</p><p>“Why don’t you learn from Hyakuzawa and go watch game footage or something actually useful?”</p><p>“Fine.” Across the gym, Kiyoomi can see Motoya sending him a look, which means he might come and supervise in a moment, and Kiyoomi would rather avoid that. Yaku and Motoya get on too well, and laugh too easily, and right now, Kiyoomi senses that they’d be inclined to direct that at him. He puts his hands in his jacket pockets. “Knowledge is always useful. It’s important to be prepared.”</p><p>Behind Yaku, Hyakuzawa blinks at Kiyoomi. “Everyone admired Oikawa a lot,” he adds, as though that isn’t Kiyoomi’s current concern.</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>Kiyoomi doesn’t manage to fix his breakfast company. If anything, it gets worse – Kageyama and Hinata start to regularly join them, and a rotating cast of other team members and support staff follows.</p><p>It’s his fault for letting Hoshiumi and Miya follow him after the gym, and for choosing to go to the dining hall nearest their rooms, and for having a face that somehow, despite all efforts, doesn’t repel everyone who looks at him. He doesn’t do anything about any of it, though.</p><p>“You know where Iwaizumi-san went to school, right?” Hinata asks Kiyoomi when Iwaizumi, one of the trainers and apparently yet another Miyagi export (Kiyoomi’s trying not to hold it against him: he was very patient when Kiyoomi had a concern about his ankle that turned out to be either caution or conjuncture, depending on whether you ask him or his cousin), sits with them. Hinata is leaning across the table and over his food, one hoodie tie swinging dangerously close to his smoothie. Kiyoomi eyes it, and doesn’t bother responding. “He went to Seijou!”</p><p>Kiyoomi has never heard of the school, so no, he didn’t know. “You don’t say.”</p><p>A couple of seats along, where he’s explaining something about feet to Hoshiumi and Kageyama, Iwaizumi pauses and looks curiously towards them, Kageyama echoing the motion behind him. Hinata grins, and Iwaizumi grins back. Kiyoomi scowls: he’s over high school.</p><p>-</p><p>He’s not over middle school, though. He and Wakatoshi fall into a dinner routine he could have only dreamed of then: on nights when they don’t have team obligations, he can knock on Wakatoshi’s door at 6:30, and then they’ll walk to a cafe or canteen and eat mostly in courteous silence, interrupted only when Kiyoomi has a query, which he is free to air whenever he wants.</p><p>Today, though, Wakatoshi is distracted, and keeps glancing at his phone. Kiyoomi checks his own, just in case there’s some breaking news story about the Olympics being cancelled again, or something. All that comes up, though, are human interest stories about inspiring athletes and articles looking ahead to the Opening Ceremony later in the week. The one Kiyoomi clicks on – just in case there’s some information hidden within it – details the thousands upon thousands of people who are going to be in the stadium, and that makes his phone feel grimy under his fingers, so he puts it down and counts his way through defence formations until his hands feel normal and he can focus on wondering what Wakatoshi is focusing on again.</p><p>Which is about when Hinata flops into the seat next to him with a tray of food, providing an unwanted rescue from Kiyoomi’s desert island evening. “Hi, Omi-san, Ushijima-san!”</p><p>“How did you find us?” Kiyoomi asks, warily. He doesn’t actually mind eating with Hinata, given that his deference to proper meals generally overcomes his more enthusiastic instincts, but they’re in one of the other buildings, nowhere near their rooms, so it’s unlikely Hinata is here without a purpose.</p><p>“I asked him,” Wakatoshi answers for Hinata, before handing him his phone. “What do you think?”</p><p>Whilst Hinata’s considering the screen, Kiyoomi leans in and looks at it too. There are three texts from an unsaved number. The first one is a link.</p><p>The second one reads<em> another victory for me and my pride! time for you to concede that i am a brightly shining star, lighting up lives across the world, and you are just a fallacious snob! </em></p><p>The third adds, <em> and boring. don’t reply until you’ve also been profiled in a national newspaper </em></p><p>“I thi-nk he’s joking,” says Hinata, although he doesn’t sound convinced. “I’m sure your reply will be fine, though.”</p><p>Kiyoomi’s eyes move down the screen. Wakatoshi has typed, but not yet sent, a response. <em> I disagree with your assessment of me, but I will yield to your judgement on the rest. However, I will not concede victory on the court. Good luck with your upcoming matches. </em></p><p>He’s included a link too; Kiyoomi recognises the URL as that of a newspaper which ran a story on Wakatoshi during the last World Championships.</p><p>“Are you sure?”</p><p>“The article might annoy him, but he did ask for it. The message is very you, though.”</p><p>“I was the one to write it.” Wakatoshi pauses, and Kiyoomi gets ready to ask who, exactly, thinks they can be so rude to Wakatoshi. Before he can interject, though, Wakatoshi softens. “I hope we have each made it far enough along the path to joke about the journey. We have not seen eye to eye in the past,” he tells Hinata.</p><p>Hinata tries and fails to look surprised, and then gives up completely. “You were both kind of rude.”</p><p>Wakatoshi looks as concerned as he ever gets. “Really? Any rudeness was completely unintentional.”</p><p>“You told me I was sucky!”</p><p>“Was he wrong?” Kiyoomi asks, as Wakatoshi says, “I doubt I would have said ‘sucky’.”</p><p>Hinata, who has picked the wrong moment to shove a glob of rice into his mouth, scowls at them both. “Wha-eveh,” he manages, and swallows. “I’ve changed, at least. In all kinds of ways. Now I’m an Oikawa-whisper!”</p><p>And yeah, Kiyoomi had already got a pretty good idea of just who the conversation was about, because if nothing else, everybody seems determined to make him engage with Mr Not-Actually-Mr-Argentina-At-All.</p><p>He still takes the opportunity to say “Oikawa?” as sceptically as he can, though.</p><p>“Yes. We discussed him last week,” Wakatoshi tells him, unnecessarily.</p><p>“I remember. But I didn’t know you talked.” And even though he already knows this is underselling it, Kiyoomi adds, “I thought he was just some guy you played against a few times.”</p><p>“Yes. So are you. So is Hinata.” Wakatoshi frowns a little. “We are volleyball players.”</p><p>“They’re rivals!” amends Hinata.</p><p>“You could have said that,” Kiyoomi says to Wakatoshi.</p><p>“I have never regarded him as a rival, even if he sees me that way.”</p><p>“He definitely does,” Hinata cuts in. “The text is definitely a challenge. I know rivalry.” He sounds proud, as though all that superfluous competition isn’t a deeply inefficient use of energy and time. (When Wakatoshi speaks next, Kiyoomi looks back at him immediately.)</p><p>“Oh. I had assumed he was trying to annoy me.”</p><p>“Ah. Yeah, okay, it was probably mostly that.”</p><p>Kiyoomi doesn’t care for the Oikawa he imagines must have sent those texts. This Oikawa is hungry, but only for fame. He pursues sports because he thinks it’ll make him look cool, with one eye always on the stands. Kiyoomi knew a few people like that at Okojo Middle School, and then less at Itachiyama. They never lasted long.</p><p>He’s also not particularly enjoying the two-hander script playing out between Hinata and Wakatoshi. The entire conversation feels like it’s happening half-turned away from him, half in a different place. Or time. “How’d he get your number?” he interrupts.</p><p>“Hinata,” says Wakatoshi. Hinata flushes at being called out.</p><p>“At least I warned you! And came here to help.”</p><p>“If you feel the need to warn Wakatoshi-kun about someone, why would you help them contact him at all?” Kiyoomi asks, swivelling in his seat so he can send a more direct glare at Hinata; the kind that, in a just world, would leave him as nothing but a pair of trainers with smoke drifting out of them.</p><p>“It’s fine,” Wakatoshi says. “It’s good to know Oikawa is doing well. And I welcome the challenge of our conversations.”</p><p>“Hm.” Wakatoshi called Oikawa challenging before, too. Kiyoomi has decided he doesn’t particularly care for the concept of a challenge. It has its place, and he welcomes it on occasion. Well, one occasion, which is playing Wakatoshi. The rest of the time it’s something he will allow himself to be pulled into, to rise to. That doesn’t mean he seeks it out.</p><p>As it is, Kiyoomi has already had enough of Oikawa-related challenges. He’s appearing less and less a professional volleyball player, respected by an unexpectedly deep pool of Kiyoomi’s peers. Instead, he’s like a fish who lives in that pool, which Kiyoomi is trying to catch. Except every time he casts his line, it turns out the fish is in a completely different place and also several times larger than expected and for some reason comes with five different backstories which Kiyoomi is expected to know, even though it’s a fish so why would it have any backstory at all– </p><p>“Are you okay, Omi-san?” Hinata interrupts his thoughts. “You’re breathing pretty hard.”</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>Even though the games haven’t started yet, there’s still a team meeting every night, to discuss progress and tactics and development, but mostly schedules. Everyone troops to a meeting room that’s nowhere near their rooms and which may technically be designed for thirty people but is not designed for thirty athletes, to be told that tomorrow will be the same as today.</p><p>Kiyoomi doesn’t understand why it can’t just be emailed to them. He has never been late.</p><p>Tonight, he’s sitting in his usual seat, which is on the very end of a row, next to Motoya. They’re the only ones who have usual seats, and Motoya only really has one to prevent anyone else from sitting there, but Kiyoomi doesn’t care. The days are long, and at the end of them, he wants his space. And the chair is part of his routine now, which means it’s his.</p><p>The meeting hasn’t started, and Motoya is talking to Yaku, sat on his other side. Yaku isn’t really listening, though. Instead, he’s watching Miya and Hakuba throwing rolled up bits of paper into a bin a few seats in front of them. He’s smiling, but not kindly. Which is fair, Kiyoomi thinks: he’s not feeling kind towards them either. Every time they get one in, which is basically everytime, they whoop like they’ve got a service ace.</p><p>Motoya has just said something about how strong the women’s team are looking when Yaku hums loudly and then says, also loudly, “You’d think the novelty of propelling spheres around would have worn off by now, given that it’s literally the only requirement of their jobs. But I guess they’re not normally very successful at it.”</p><p>Miya swings around, with the same look he gets during league matches when someone on the Jackals does something better than he does. Like, yes, we're on the same team, so this has to stay a friendly competition, but with friends like these, who needs enemies?</p><p>“That’s your loss, because now you’re not gonna get to hear my gossip. Figure someone who doesn’t appreciate my skills, won’t appreciate it.”</p><p>Yaku only rolls his eyes, but it’s too late: they’ve caught his attention. Miya’s stare roves between the three of them, like he’s a kid and they’re moles he’s trying to a-whack. Hakuba shifts a seat over to bother Hoshiumi instead. </p><p>“Omi-kun,” Miya starts and, there. Kiyoomi has lost. He really lost the second Miya learnt his name. “I know you’re interested, you’re always trying to <em> weasel </em>information out of people.” There’s a pause, presumably for the reaction Kiyoomi refuses to part with, and then Miya looks at Motoya. “Komori, gimme something. That one was for you too. Because you also went to Itachiyama. Itachi. Which means weasel.”</p><p>“Ugh,” says Kiyoomi, unable to keep hold of his scorn any longer.</p><p>Motoya gives Miya a sympathetic look, which Kiyoomi knows is mostly mocking. “You must have had to really <em> ferret </em>around to find that joke, huh?”</p><p>“That was funny,” Miya says, looking put out. He doesn’t need to, Kiyoomi thinks, because it wasn’t. “I guess that earns you some gossip too.”</p><p>“Atsumu,” calls Iwaizumi from the other side of the room, where he’s talking to Hinata. “The meeting’s about to start, so leave it until after.”</p><p>Which is weird. Iwaizumi’s a trainer, right, and Kiyoomi’s only ever seen him do trainer-appropriate stuff, and talk about trainer-appropriate things. Even at meals, he sticks to joints and diets. He doesn’t really seem to care what they do with their time, as long as they stay fit and keep all their bones intact. Case in point, ignoring Miya and Hakuba throwing things at bins, no matter how much injury it does to the team’s patience.</p><p>And Miya looks delighted at the interjection, instead of annoyed at being told off like a school kid. Something’s going on, Kiyoomi thinks. Miya isn’t just bluffing. “You would say that,” he crows. “You traitor.”</p><p>“I’m here, aren’t I? Team Japan.” Iwaizumi shrugs with an irreproachable smile, and then mutters something to Hinata, who laughs.</p><p>Miya – who always surprises Kiyoomi with his deference to authority, and disappoints Kiyoomi by refusing to see him as such – wheels round to look at them again. “After, then. You better be excited,” he says. It’s a threat.</p><p>-</p><p>And, after, Kiyoomi does end up following Motoya to Miya and Ojiro’s room.</p><p>“I don’t care at all,” Yaku says to Motoya as he goes in the other direction, “but if it is interesting, tell me.”</p><p>Bokuto and Hinata and Kageyama come too. Ojiro’s also there, but that’s probably because they’re in his bedroom.</p><p>Bokuto’s already hooting before they’ve fully assembled: Miya is being deliberately obscure, which seems to have convinced Bokuto that this is actually going to be interesting. Kiyoomi’s unconvinced. Although Hinata, in the know, looks like he’s never had so much fun in his life. He keeps saying things like, “Is this about…?” which make Miya completely drop his whole mysterious act to shush Hinata loudly.</p><p>“Your teammates are so fun,” Motoya says, as they enter. Kiyoomi responds by standing by Ojiro, sat on his bed on the opposite side of the room.</p><p>“Alright,” says Miya grandly. “I’m ready to reveal everything.” He leaves a long pause, in which only Bokuto reacts, clapping keenly a couple of times before realising it’s just him and trailing off, like a wind-up toy slowing sadly down as it runs out of wind.</p><p>“Hurry up,” Kiyoomi says.</p><p>“Fine,” Miya replies, “fine. You’re no fun, Omi.”</p><p>“Thanks. I’ll continue to work hard.”</p><p>“Anyway, I–”</p><p>“Atsumu-san met Oikawa-san,” Hinata interjects innocently. Fake innocently. He looks directly at Kiyoomi as he speaks, but before Kiyoomi can work out why, or narrow his eyes threateningly at him, Hinata’s turned away and is elbowing Kageyama in the side.</p><p>“I was going to say it way better,” Miya says. “But fine. It’s true.”</p><p>Bokuto whoops obligingly, but it’s not his most heartfelt.</p><p>“Is that really gossip?” Motoya asks, although it turns into a snigger when, at the same time Kiyoomi says, “Who cares?”</p><p>“It’s gossip,” says Miya, who seems to have recovered himself enough to put on a superior voice, “because of who he was with. We have a traitor in our midst.”</p><p>“In here?” says Bokuto, sounding genuinely alarmed. “Kageyama, was it Italy? Have they got to you?”</p><p>“No,” Kageyama tells him, although he then asks “What did Oikawa say?” with enough speed that it probably would fit whatever Miya’s stupid definition of treachery is.</p><p>“Hold up, hold up. Let’s do one thing at a time, yeah?” Miya waves his hands at Kageyama.</p><p>“Please hurry up,” says Ojiro this time, with some insistence. Kiyoomi gets the sense this reveal has already been practiced on him.</p><p>“Okay, so Oikawa came over when I was talking to–”</p><p>“Iwaizumi-san!” says Hinata, gleefully. Bokuto does gasp this time. “Right?”</p><p>“Shouyou, you’re real lucky I like you,” Miya says. “Because otherwise, things would not be looking pretty for you.”</p><p>“Okay!” Hinata chirps back. “I like being lucky.”</p><p>“I mean, it makes sense that Iwaizumi-san and Oikawa-san meet up,” Kageyama says thoughtfully. “They’ve been friends for years.”</p><p>“Yeah, they both played for Seijou,” Hinata adds, and then shifts his attention to Bokuto, holding his arms up like he’s blocking; Kiyoomi recognises this as an opening for a story about how goooood someone was, and how it was so tough to play them, until something something blah blah. He cuts it off before the third ‘o’ in Hinata’s good.</p><p>“That’s not right. You told me Iwaizumi played for Seijou. But Oikawa played for Aoba whatever. And–” he tilts his head towards Kageyama. “Wherever. Some middle school.”</p><p>“Seijou was Aobajohsai's nickname,” Hinata says. “Was? Is? Kageyama, do they still get called that?”</p><p>“Don’t know,” Kageyama says. “Miya-san, what–”</p><p>“Wait, wait,” Hinata says. “We’ve got to clear things up for Omi-san.”</p><p>“Please do,” Kiyoomi says, ignoring the nickname for the sake of efficiency. In his head, the family tree of Oikawa-relationships is amending itself, branches reshuffling to make room for yet more information. It's going to need pruning soon.</p><p>“I told you before,” Hinata says. “Or tried. Iwaizumi went to high school with Oikawa. And middle school.”</p><p>“And elementary school,” Kageyama adds.</p><p>“But,” Kiyoomi begins, another bough growing creepily fast. “Kageyama, you went to middle school with Oikawa.”</p><p>“Yes. He and Iwaizumi were my seniors.”</p><p>“You’re telling me that Iwaizumi and you went to school together?” Atsumu says. Near-shouts, actually. Normally, that would grate on Kiyoomi, but it doesn’t seem overly excessive right now.</p><p>“Is that more shocking than Iwazumi and Oikawa?” Motoya asks. He seems very unbothered. Probably already knew the whole story, Kiyoomi realises. Now, that’s traitorous.</p><p>“I already knew about that, obviously. Everyone does, except–” (he glances at Kiyoomi) “real dense idiots, apparently. I was just being mean about it because I could.” (Ojiro tuts.) “But it’s stupid I didn’t know about Kageyama and Iwaizumi. I’ve spoken to both of you. At the same time.”</p><p>“Why would I talk about middle school now?” Kageyama says, bluntly.</p><p>In a stage whisper, Hinata adds, “It’s his tragic backstory, so he doesn’t want to talk about it ever.” Kageyama whips round and lunges at him. No one reacts.</p><p>Bokuto, who’s been weirdly quiet, peers at Miya instead. “So everyone knew your gossip already, Tsum-Tsum? Including you? That kind of sucks.”</p><p>He reaches out, hand already fluttering to pat Miya comfortingly on the arm, only Miya pulls away, fast. “No way! The gossip wasn’t that Iwaizumi knows Oikawa, it’s that they’re meeting! That’s traitorous. And rude.”</p><p>“I think it’s rude to say that about Iwaizumi,” Motoya interrupts, smilingly.</p><p>Miya looks almost frantic, his vision of suave wisdom-dispensing having been dispelled by the reality that his gossip is awful. “Well, sure, but that’s not even all! Oikawa also, uh, wears glasses. He was wearing glasses. When he arrived. Actually.”</p><p>The image of Oikawa which lives in Kiyoomi’s head acquires glasses.</p><p>“I didn’t know that,” says Kageyama.</p><p>“Why would that be useful to know?” asks Ojiro. “It obviously doesn’t affect him on court.”</p><p>Kiyoomi agrees. The image of Oikawa takes his glasses off.</p><p>“Obviously,” Miya retorts, “we use it to sabotage him.”</p><p>“That actually is rude,” Ojiro says.</p><p>His is a lost cause, though, because Bokuto asks, “How!”</p><p>Miya, Bokuto and – to Kiyoomi’s embarrassment – Motoya are midway through conceptualising how they can confuse Oikawa by all doing their hair the same, when Ojiro leans over to Kiyoomi.</p><p>“Does he still always act this stupid?” he says, but before Kiyoomi has a chance to affirm, Ojiro continues. “Wait, of course he does. It’s part of who he is.”</p><p>In front of them, Miya proposes a contact-lens heist.</p><p>“Although don’t go saying that to other people,” Ojiro continues. “I wouldn’t have mentioned it if you weren’t friends with him, you know. But I figure you get it by now.”</p><p>Kiyoomi feels like denying friendship is more trouble than it’s worth, so he just nods. “Sure.”</p><p>The heist is midplan when Kageyama, visibly bored, interrupts. “Atsumu-san, did Oikawa say anything to you?”</p><p>“Oh <em> yeah </em>!” Miya looks gleeful now. “Yeah! Turns out he’s the worst.”</p><p>Kageyama looks solemn. “Yeah.”</p><p>-</p><p>Half an hour later, when someone knocks on the door of Atsumu’s room, Kiyoomi is still there. Outside, it’s dark, the sky bruised yellow by light pollution. Inside, it’s chaos, the space piled with laughing accusations. Kiyoomi hasn’t learnt anything more about what Oikawa is like to play, but he has heard a complete summary of Hinata’s meeting with him in Brazil – nothing like he’d assumed – and a reluctant admission of Kageyama’s views on him in middle school – everything like you’d expect. Turns out, Oikawa has always been determined, able and intense. Sure. Him and every other person in a mile radius.</p><p>Miya has also recounted his meeting, all three sentences of it. They barely even spoke, but you wouldn’t think that from how grandly he spins the story out. Or how large the reaction is. People other than Hinata actually laugh when Miya calls Oikawa odd as a number. Admittedly it’s just Bokuto (swept up in the moment) and Motoya (nice to people), and Ojiro immediately cuts in and points out that that doesn’t make any sense, what with half of all numbers being even. But still. There’s a lot of enthusiasm for talking about him.</p><p>Even more for talking to him. After Miya has reenacted the way he told Oikawa to watch out (something Kiyoomi has his doubts about; it sounds like way too smooth a line), Bokuto sags. “I want to say something cool like that too. Like, <em>we’re coming for you!</em> That sounds good!”</p><p>Hinata grins at that, and pulls his phone out of his pocket. “I have his number, you know. Maybe we should send him a challenge. Nothing mean though!”</p><p>“Mean? Who here’d be mean?” says Miya, to groans, which he looks offended at and then immediately earns when he suggests, “Let’s tell him that he plays like a suckup, and his setting is way too cutesy to be cool.”</p><p>“You still spent the afternoon getting all dumbstruck over YouTube compilations of him.”</p><p>“Aran-kun! That was research! I wasn’t dumbstruck, I was– contemplative!”</p><p>“As if you even know the meaning of the word,” Kiyoomi can’t resist saying.</p><p>“Ooh! I do!” Bokuto can’t resist yelling.</p><p>“Okay, but what should we say to Oikawa?” Motoya can’t resist asking, apparently. Like he even cares; he just finds this funny, Kiyoomi’s sure.</p><p>Still, it relights the conversation so that, by the time the knock comes, it’s raging like a fire. If that fire was a fiercely pointless discussion about whether ‘win’ sounds cooler than ‘victory’.</p><p>Wakatoshi’s at the door. He looks past Ojiro – who opened it; as if Miya was ever going to play host – and takes the scene in. Almost everyone is crouched around where Hinata is sat on the floor, craning at his phone in a messy huddle. Kiyoomi, at least, is still stood back, although he abruptly realises that he’s closer to the group than he started. </p><p>“Hey,” Ojiro says. “Do you want to come in?”</p><p>“No, thank you. I only came to look for Kageyama.” Having found him, Wakatoshi readdresses his attention. “I was concerned when you didn’t come back to our room. Normally you’re already asleep.”</p><p>“Sorry,” says Kageyama. “We’re texting Oikawa-san.”</p><p>From behind Wakatoshi, where they’re hidden by how seamlessly his shoulders fit the doorframe, someone laughs. “And that really takes all of you?”</p><p>“Hi Iwaizumi-san!” Hinata calls. “We were inspired by Atsumu-san!”</p><p>“He really got under your skin, huh, Atsumu?” says Iwaizumi, pushing Wakatoshi into the room so he can see them all.</p><p>“No. Bokuto started it. You can’t talk. Why’re in my room?” Atsumu says, very efficiently.</p><p>“Can you blame him?” Hinata says to Iwaizumi, a little pityingly. Something close to agreement passes across Wakatoshi and Kageyama’s faces in unison.</p><p>Iwaizumi shrugs. “I guess not. And I’m in your room because I bumped into Ushijima. He told me he’d visited a couple of rooms with missing people whilst looking for Kageyama, and I decided I should investigate too, because if any athletes get into trouble, so do I. Hyakuzawa’s waiting up for you, by the way, Hinata.”</p><p>“What are you texting him?” asks Wakatoshi, leaning over Bokuto, who’s crouched at Hinata’s side. Like that, Wakatoshi kind of looks like a penguin, balancing an egg on its feet to protect it from the cold. Bokuto’s the egg.</p><p>“A challenge!” Bokuto hatches, throwing his arms wide.</p><p>“Nothing yet,” amends Motoya.</p><p>“<em> If you want to get past us, we will win </em>,” Wakatoshi reads from the draft currently typed into Hinata’s phone. “That doesn’t make sense.”</p><p>“We know!” Miya says defensively. “We’re just trying things out right now. Hey, what do you think about adding something like ‘eat sand’, so he knows we know about him stacking it in beach.”</p><p>Iwaizumi laughs. “I’d love to see his face if you did. But surely you could just tell him you’ll beat him or something.”</p><p>“Makes more sense than ‘eat sand’,” Ojiro says. “What’s that even mean?”</p><p>“How’s this!” Hinata says, and swings his phone screen round at everyone. Kiyoomi can’t see it, but he also doesn’t care, and definitely doesn’t need Motoya to read it out for him.</p><p>“We’re going to beat you,” Motoya says over his shoulder anyway. “And then two exclamation marks.”</p><p>“Why not go for a hattrick?” Kiyoomi asks sardonically.</p><p>“Ooh, good idea!” Hinata responds, and meaningfully taps a single key on his keyboard, adding another mite of enthusiasm into the world.</p><p>“You can’t just say ‘we’ and then not specify who,” Miya says. “We need to sign it. Because otherwise he’ll probably just think it’s only you and Kageyama. He won’t know us, what with him being so out of the loop and all.” He says this very smugly, and then suddenly remembers Iwaizumi’s here, and glances guiltily at him.</p><p>“Put my name first first!” Bokuto says, leaning away from Wakatoshi’s legs so his nose is almost up against Hinata’s phone.</p><p>“Sure! Ushijima-san, Iwaizumi-san, do you want to be included?”</p><p>“Go for it,” says Iwaizumi, kind of too quickly.</p><p>“What about everyone else?” Motoya proposes. “Just because they’re not here doesn’t mean they don’t want to win. I bet Yaku would love something this close to a threat.”</p><p>“Ooh!” Bokuto’s pupils go starshaped for a moment. “I’ll get him!”</p><p>“No,” Iwaizumi says, suddenly remembering his position of responsibility. “No disturbing anyone else. It’s late.”</p><p>“But what if–”</p><p>“No buts, Bokuto.”</p><p>“Don’t mention me,” Kiyoomi says. “I don’t want to be associated with this.”</p><p>“Which doesn’t mean he doesn’t agree with the sentiment,” Motoya points out. He’s not wrong, but Kiyoomi wrinkles his nose distastefully anyway.</p><p>“I can put you down as ‘anonymous’,” Hinata suggests.</p><p>“No.”</p><p>“Why do we need names?” asks Ojiro. “You could just say ‘Team Japan’, or something.”</p><p>“I don’t want to speak for people–”</p><p>“I’m sure everyone wants to beat Argentina,” Miya says. “Except maybe Iwaizumi.”</p><p>“No, I really do. But it’s still probably not the best idea to send personal threats from ‘Team Japan’. For brand reasons.”</p><p>“Real responsible of you,” says Miya.</p><p>“It is my job,” Iwaizumi says, at the same time that Kageyama says, “He always has been.”</p><p>Iwaizumi laughs awkwardly, whilst Miya laughs a little meanly. “I’m glad I found out you were schoolmates Tobio-kun, otherwise that would have seemed even creepier.”</p><p>“I’ve put ‘from everybody’!” Hinata interrupts, once again displaying his phone proudly. “Is that okay with, uh, everybody?”</p><p>“No one is allowed to say no,” Iwaizumi crosses his arms. “Everyone agree, and then go to bed.”</p><p>“Aw, I wanted to hang out more,” Atsumu says.</p><p>“Well, I really fancy the idea of sleeping before midnight,” Ojiro says.</p><p>“We’ll do it tomorrow!” Bokuto offers reassuringly. Worryingly.</p><p>Hinata stands. “I’ve sent the message. Goodnight!”</p><p>They file out and, after Motoya has thanked Ojiro for welcoming them, as if he had a choice, Kiyoomi falls into step with him.</p><p>“First contact with <em> the </em>Oikawa Tooru established, huh?” Motoya says, teasingly. “Are you going to write about it in your journal?”</p><p>“It’s not a journal. And no.” Oikawa has far outgrown Kiyoomi’s pink notebook.</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>The relief following Japan’s first match – and win – is less like air being released from an over-inflated (over-energised, over-stressed, completely over waiting around) balloon, and more like the balloon has been popped, loud and close to Kiyoomi’s face. Which, incidentally, is where too many of his teammates are leaning in to speak. Bent on celebration, they seem insistent on getting close, both literally and figuratively. Even Yaku, who’s been prickly since the Hyakuzawa incident, seems to have finally accepted that Kiyoomi is on the team for a reason other than to annoy him. Now, when he talks about them breaking others’ spirits, Kiyoomi gets included in the ‘them’, and not the ‘others’.</p><p>Everyone seems very happy. Kiyoomi wishes nerves back upon all of them.</p><p>He has not been sucked into this positive atmosphere. Yes, he spends time with his teammates, but he’d do that anyway. They need to rewatch matches together, and if that flows into watching movies, so be it. It isn’t even <em> that </em>weird of him to let Miya drag him into a intra-team ping pong tournament in one of the common rooms. He’s good at it. They beat Hoshiumi and Hinata, and Hakuba and Bokuto. So no, he definitely isn’t feeling any emotions as unstable as jubilant, nor as bohemian as relaxed. No matter what Motoya says.</p><p>-</p><p>Which isn’t to say that everyone is getting on perfectly. In a meeting room in Ariake Arena where they’re waiting to debrief after their third match, Kiyoomi watches Kageyama and Hinata argue about the fact that Hinata said he’s excited to play Oikawa in their post-match interview.</p><p>Will they evaporate, Kiyoomi wonders, if they don’t squabble at least twice a day? Have they somehow evolved a way to turn stupid arguments into fuel? Do they still food, or can they just get by on converting competition into sugar? He’s never been so glad that Miya is the Jackals’ setter.</p><p>“But I am excited!” Hinata is contending.</p><p>“But I wanted to say it.”</p><p>On the other side of the room, Ojiro looks more exhausted by this than he did by the game. </p><p>“Why couldn’t I say it first? I know him too!”</p><p>“I’ve known him longer.”</p><p>Next to Kiyoomi, Motoya laughs. “Pretty embarrassing you didn’t realise that they knew Oikawa sooner.”</p><p>Kiyoomi shuffles his chair closer to Wakatoshi on his other side, shoving his chin into the collar of his tracksuit. “Pretty embarrassing you think I pay any attention to them.”</p><p>Across from them, Miya turns to Ojiro. “Aren’t they the worst? It was a total relief when Tobio-kun went off to Italy, so I didn’t have to put up with him and Shouyou-kun doing this after every match against the Adlers.”</p><p>Ojiro looks at him blankly for a moment. “You realise this was what being on a team with you and Osumu was like? I had to put up with this for years. Actually, this is better, becaust they aren’t trying to rip each others' heads off.”</p><p>Miya swallows guiltily, and Kiyoomi decides he likes Ojiro plenty. Before he can revel in Miya’s discomfort any longer, though, Wakatoshi turns to him.</p><p>“I am intending to stay and watch Argentina’s match after this. It begins in an hour. You are welcome to come with me,” Wakatoshi says, “if you’re still curious.”</p><p>-</p><p>Kageyama joins them too, in seats at the very highest level of the stands. The stadium is packed; it’s only all the way up here that there’s any space left. From this distance, the empty court below looks almost pocket-sized, ready to be folded up and put neatly away. </p><p>Kiyoomi isn’t sure if Kageyama was invited here by Wakatoshi too, or if he was simply sucked in by the gravity of whatever it is that Argentina represents. He doesn’t explain. He doesn't really speak at all, except to greet them, but then again, neither do Wakatoshi or Kiyoomi.</p><p>At least, Kiyoomi doesn’t speak until the Argentinian team begin their warm up. At that point – the point at which the blue huddle on the sideline breaks into pieces and Kiyoomi can suddenly see <em> him </em>, Oikawa, breaking free like a stone kicked loose from a path and landing at the serve line – Wakatoshi and Kageyama look to each other. Kiyoomi has the distinct sense that he’s being left out of a conversation again.</p><p>“Why are we here?” Kiyoomi says to Wakatoshi, more harshly than intended. “Is it that you want to beat him? And you're researching? I thought you only lost to <em> him </em> at the prefecture level <em> . </em>” (He punctuates this with a hand wave at Kageyama, who looks up from the warmup suspiciously.)</p><p>Wakatoshi's gaze as flat and solid as the court. “That’s true. Oikawa never beat me. There’s no pride that I’m trying to recover. I simply anticipate a good match against a player I respect.”</p><p>“I want to beat him,” Kageyama interrupts. Kiyoomi is about to make a comment about how that’s obvious, he’s seen him and Hinata interact, when Kageyama continues. “Otherwise we won’t get gold.”</p><p>Wakatoshi nods. “That’s true. We should be intending to beat all our opponents.”</p><p>Kiyoomi’s instinct is to snarl something rude, and he probably would, if it was just Kageyama with him. Instead, he regroups. “Sure. But we’re not watching them all in person. What’s special about Oikawa?”</p><p>“I watched Italy play,” Kageyama says, and Kiyoomi scowls at him. Kageyama only watched Italy because Hinata wanted to see what kind of people he was playing with there, and wouldn’t shut up until Kageyama agreed to come with him. Kiyoomi knows all this because he was in earshot of Hinata not shutting up. He understands why it worked.</p><p>Wakatoshi has been watching the assembly line of serves operating below, but he looks up now. “I have come to appreciate that being proved wrong can be constructive,” he says, “and so seeing Oikawa play has particular value for me. But Argentina are a talented team. They’re worth watching anyway.”</p><p>Kiyoomi nods, and then turns sharply to Kageyama. “And you?”</p><p>“I want to know if I can beat him,” Kageyama replies. “He’s– uh, he’s very good.” Glancing at Wakatoshi, who is looking at the court again, he adds, “Oikawa-san always proves me right.”</p><p>“His serve looks as dangerous as ever,” Wakatoshi comments.</p><p>“It’s worse, probably,” Kageyama replies. “Same as always.”</p><p>“Why’s he good, though?” Kiyoomi presses: he wants to know what to look out for. He’s getting the sense there’s something vampire-esque about it, that doesn’t show up on film. Below them, Oikawa positions himself by the net so Argentina’s attackers can warm up their spiking arms. “Did he get lucky?”</p><p>“No,” Wakatoshi says. “I suppose you could say he makes his own luck. But there was nothing particularly special about his physique, or the opportunities he took. He certainly didn’t chose the easier path.”</p><p>For a moment, it’s not Oikawa that Kiyoomi is watching from a distance, but Wakatoshi and Kageyama. Everything about them is a miraculous accident of confluence. Rocks that had the good fortune to be mountains. Like a river meeting solid cliff, Oikawa would have had to find a different course in the face of them.</p><p>Or maybe it’s more mundane. Maybe Oikawa once stood on his apartment balcony, looking at the wreckage where his prized plants have been pulled apart by birds, with no one to blame but the sky and evolution and instinct. Only then he’s not stood still anymore. Oikawa Tooru, for Kiyoomi, for a moment, is a man moving to a whole new apartment, arms full of plant pots.</p><p>“He’s stubborn,” Kageyama continues, a little crossly.</p><p>“Unyielding,” corrects Wakatoshi. “And prideful.”</p><p>“He doesn’t sound nice,” says Kiyoomi.</p><p>“But he is talented,” says Wakatoshi, which Kiyoomi interprets as confirmation.</p><p>“It doesn’t really matter what he’s like,” Kageyama continues, “when he plays.”</p><p>The birds don’t shut up about him, after he’s left.</p><p>-</p><p>Halfway through the second set, Oikawa sets up a fairly ordinary looking quick, and Kageyama starts.</p><p>“It’s hard to tell from one match,” he says, “but what Oikawa-san is really good at is bringing out the best in his team. Ushijima-san, you said something like that once.”</p><p>“It’s true.”</p><p>“Yeah. That blocker plays for Milan, and I’ve never seen him hit that a set that fast before. Even now he’s managing to make his players stronger.” Kageyama trails off; there’s a particularly long rally happening on court, and he’s staring intently past it.</p><p>Kiyoomi remains unmoved. Perhaps it’s three years of playing with Miya, who adamantly refuses to help anyone improve, perhaps it’s that Kiyoomi doesn’t want anyone puppeting him. Perhaps it’s that, as an opponent, Oikawa’s hardly going to help him. Still, though, he wonders if maybe, on sighting Oikawa, with his new garden even more vivid than before, the birds fly higher too.</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>“Are you nervous?” Hinata asks, when Kiyoomi sits down opposite him at breakfast, the day of their match against Argentina. Iwaizumi, with whom Kiyoomi has been confirming his stretch routine – something is on the verge of feeling off in his right shoulder – slides into the next seat along.</p><p>“Why would I? It’s just another game.” Which doesn’t mean Kiyoomi doesn’t care. Just another game means more time spent on the clean plateau of the court. He could never be nervous about that.</p><p>Hinata nods approvingly. “Very mature, Omi-san. Kageyama’s scared.”</p><p>Kageyama, sat next to him, screws up his face like a sheet of paper. “What? Am not.”</p><p>“Ah,” Hinata continues serenely, as though Kageyama isn’t glaring at him, “maybe Kageyama-kun is maturing too. He used to be terrified of Oikawa in high school.”</p><p>Iwaizumi laughs. “Probably sensible.”</p><p>“Scared?” Even now, Kiyoomi is learning new things. He'd never thought that Kageyama could feel fear before. He always seemed too oblivious.</p><p>“Not anymore. Hinata’s stupid.”</p><p>“Hey!”</p><p>“But he’s still just another good player on a team we need to beat. Everyone's good. Why complicate things?” Kiyoomi asks. Oikawa is just a pair of brown eyes, among a crowd of eyes.</p><p>“Are things complicated?” Hinata asks Kageyama, who shrugs. “It’s just cool because we know him, really.”</p><p>“Yeah. You’re the one who keeps asking about him, Sakusa-san,” Kageyama says. The air around Kiyoomi’s head feels like it heats up and begins to crackle with lightning.</p><p>“I think Oikawa would be touched to be considered so good that he’s normal,” Iwaizumi interrupts, thoughtfully. “Not that he’d admit that. He’d definitely act all huffy. But making it wasn’t ever really a guarantee – or even a possibility – for him. So I’m proud, seeing him here. Don’t tell him I said that, though.”</p><p>“I always thought Oikawa-san could make it,” Kageyama says.</p><p>“Yeah, duh,” Hinata interjects. “But you didn’t know if he <em> would </em>, did you? That’s what Iwaizumi-san means. I agree with that. I’m proud too.”</p><p>“It’s not like you were guaranteed to make it either,” Kageyama says, heatlessly. Fondly, probably. Is all the arguing their idea of fun?</p><p>“Yeah, exactly! I get it. I bet you don’t, what with being a dumb genius and all.”</p><p>“I don’t,” Kiyoomi interrupts. He does, sort of, understand, though. Oikawa matters not because he’s here, but because he might have not been. It’s exciting. An underdog story. </p><p>After that night at Miya’s, with the texting, Kiyoomi had watched an old high school match, the Miyagi Interhigh Qualifiers final from 2012, Shiratorizawa against Aobajohsai. Oikawa’s serves had been shaky, his insistence on power not yet trained into a strength. Once they’d started landing though, possibility crystalised into reliability. “I mean, sure, it’s a nice story. But he was good enough, and he did succeed. There’s no point pitying him for the past.” Kiyoomi pauses. “Why does any of it matter on court?”</p><p>“Because that’s where we play him,” Kageyama replies.</p><p>“And everybody else! I want to play everyone,” Hinata adds, bright-eyed enough to make Iwaizumi snort.</p><p>“And beat them.”</p><p>“Yeah, obviously.”</p><p>Kiyoomi thinks about the swathe of matches and opponents being laid out in front of him across the table, the same ones he’d noted in his notebook, months ago. Despite all the hidden footnotes on Oikawa’s page, he has prepared for this. On court he, at least, doesn’t have to care about anything else. So he won't.</p><p>“Sure,” he agrees.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>notes!<br/>• for the other side of the truly infamous miya-oikawa encounter, may i direct you to my earlier fic, <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25424674">know what a river can be</a>. yeah that's right, welcome to my ocu (oikawa cinematic universe).<br/>• i do want to own up and say that this isn't an accurate depiction of the 2020 olympic village sleeping arrangements, my bad i'm sorry<br/>• also my bad for any errors, this is un-betaed and i'm sure i've missed stuff!<br/>• this fic is entirely a result of that one tiny panel in 402 where sakusa receives oikawa's serve. when that chapter dropped, i was instantly like... what? why sakusa? does he even know oikawa? and within a week of that, i had the basic outline of this ready to go... and then i got distracted. for several months. whoops<br/>• anyway, we're here now, at the end, and i really hope you enjoyed! thank you so much for reading</p></blockquote></div></div>
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